LeBron’s Moment of Truth

I’ve been following basketball since the Abe Lincoln administration (really crashed the boards for a skinny guy), and for high-stakes drama, I can’t recall anything comparable to tonight’s Cavs-Celtics Game 6 in Boston. Not at such an early stage of a postseason, short of a championship game or series.

This is a game with life-changing implications for the league’s best player, a long-suffering sports town and the entire NBA. If LeBron James resurrects the spirit of his Game 3 performance in Boston — a vintage display that saw him score 21 points in the first quarter — the Cavs have a chance to even the series and get back to Cleveland.

If he comes up short, the firestorm will rage unchecked for weeks.

There are those who believe it’s too late for LeBron now, even if he has a decent game tonight. These are the Celtics as we’ve seen them so over over the decades: wise, time-tested, beaten and bruised, yet lethally efficient in the clutch. It’s Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo, with all those flags in the rafters and the place going nuts. All LeBron has to do is lead the way — I’d say 35 points, minimum — and hope people like Anderson Varejao, Antawn Jamison and Mo Williams can haul their sorry butts on board.

I’ve never seen a superstar perform so listlessly as LeBron did in Game 5. He didn’t make a shot in the entire first half, and outside of a breakaway layup, on which he was essentially alone at the far end of the court, he didn’t make a field goal until two minutes remained in the third quarter. But it wasn’t just the stat sheet; it was his utter lack of conviction, motivation, desperation. He really didn’t seem to give a damn one way or another, and that’s not just a columnist’s opinion, that’s the shocked-out-of-our-minds reaction of insiders and ex-players around the country.

Any hoops icon can have a bad game. It happened to Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. But to not even show up? Never. “The way LeBron played,” said ESPN’s Tim Legler, “was like Reggie Jackson going into a World Series and taking called third strikes.” In the words of Brian Windhorst, the able beat reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “James’ teammates have never seen him in this type of mood before, so passive and reactionary. Not the outgoing, over-the-top leader they have come to follow.”

Some of LeBron’s quotes have been downright strange. “I spoil a lot of people with my play,” he said after Game 5. “When you have three bad games in seven years, it’s easy to point them out.” (No-no-no, hold on a second. You don’t say that unless you’ve won something.) He spoke of the NBA game being “mentally challenging,” and when asked about the great play of the Celtics’ Big Three, he shrugged and said, “That’s what Hall of Famers do.”

He rationalized his distribute-the-ball mentality as a home-court thing, saying, “I think I can afford to play the back role a little bit at home. On the road, mindsets change, personnel changes.” OK, except when you’re about to be sent home for the summer, the setting doesn’t mean one damn thing — not if you’re the most dynamic player in the league. You have to get after it, right now.

When coach Mike Brown was interviewed on the sideline after the third quarter, he said he needed LeBron to “look to attack.” What, you have to tell him that?

Game 5 brought the worst of it, but LeBron has had two other desultory games in the series, going 0-for-13 from 3-point range in those three losses. Everything about his game was off; passing, shooting, his sense of urgency. The mood around Cleveland has always been tinged with anxiety when it comes to LeBron, who has refused to give the team a long-term commitment in the face of free-agent riches this summer. Now, reports say, the fans are in mourning. They’re not waiting for Game 6; this already feels like Dusty Rhodes, Willie Mays, Brian Sipe, John Elway, Earnest Byner, Craig Ehlo, Jose Mesa and all the other names that instantly suggest heartbreak in Cleveland sports history.

Considering the state of the teams in question — Knicks, Bulls, Heat, you know the drill — it never made much sense for LeBron to leave Cleveland. Now, you can’t be sure. If the team goes down in flames, and he stays in a shell, the notion seems enirely feasible.

The truth about the Cavs is that they’re still a painfully ordinary team, not even close to the Celtics, Lakers, Magic or Suns in terms of pure talent. As for LeBron, we all know he’s capable of anything. He could lift the team and the whole damn town on his back, all the way to the Finals and beyond. Don’t put it past him. How strange, though, to see him at the bottom of the hill, looking tired, distracted and perhaps hurting, physically, more than we know. It’s a long, long way to the top.